A senior figure in Turkiye’s COP31 presidency has argued that climate action deserves the same urgency and funding priority that governments currently give to defence spending, as preparations intensify for the climate summit due to open in Antalya in November. The comment reflects growing frustration among climate diplomats that military budgets have risen sharply in several major economies even as climate finance commitments lag behind stated targets.
Turkiye secured the COP31 hosting role after Australia conceded its bid in November last year, with the two countries agreeing a co-presidency arrangement under which Australia will lead on negotiations with Pacific island nations. That arrangement reflects the unusual path to this year’s host selection, which followed a prolonged dispute over which country would hold the presidency.
The comparison to defence spending is a familiar rhetorical device in climate diplomacy, but it carries particular weight ahead of a summit where climate finance for developing nations is expected to be one of the most contested items on the agenda. Governments across the Global South have repeatedly argued that pledged climate finance arrives too slowly, in forms that are too often loans rather than grants, and in amounts that fall well short of what adaptation and mitigation efforts actually require.
A cover decision still being negotiated
The COP31 presidency has said it will work towards a cover decision, the overarching political statement that closes each annual UN climate summit and typically sets the tone for the following year’s negotiations. Cover decisions have become a focal point of contention in recent years, as countries have struggled to agree on language covering fossil fuel phase-out commitments, loss and damage funding, and the pace of emissions cuts needed to stay within the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals.
COP30, held in Brazil, closed with its own unresolved tensions over fossil fuel commitments, and outgoing UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres used his final address to the General Assembly to press every nation to set concrete fossil fuel phase-out timelines, warning that polluting nations must bear the cost of climate damage. Turkiye’s presidency inherits that unfinished business as it shapes the COP31 agenda.
For food and agriculture specifically, climate finance delays carry a direct cost. Smallholder farmers across the Global South, who contribute comparatively little to global emissions, are disproportionately exposed to the droughts, floods and shifting growing seasons that climate change is accelerating, yet have the least access to the adaptation funding meant to help them cope. Framing climate finance as a matter of urgency comparable to national defence is, in part, an attempt to make that disconnect harder for wealthy governments to ignore.
Whether the rhetorical framing translates into faster, larger climate finance commitments at COP31 remains to be seen. Past summits have produced ambitious language on finance that has not always been matched by disbursement, and vulnerable nations are likely to judge Antalya’s outcome less by its communique than by how quickly promised funds actually reach them.
The defence-spending comparison is also notable for where it is being made. Turkiye sits at the intersection of several regions with acute climate exposure, from drought-hit parts of the Middle East to flood-prone areas of South Asia, giving its presidency a vantage point from which the gap between military and climate budgets looks especially stark. How that framing shapes the formal negotiating text, as opposed to the speeches surrounding it, will become clearer once draft agenda documents are published ahead of November’s summit.
